Taya
by BelovedOne
Summary: One little girl could bring them back together, but will they allow it? J/C ***CHAPTER 2 POSTED***
1. Mama

TAYA 

**Chapter 1**

Captain Kathryn Janeway slung her small bag over her shoulder and took one last glance around her apartment, now devoid of personal affects. She then made her way to the front door, where her mother stood, waiting.

"Thanks for your help, Mom. I couldn't have done it without you." Gretchen smiled.

"You're welcome, honey. You just be careful." She held Kathryn's gaze for a moment before handing over her precious cargo. A tiny face peeked out from the bundle of blankets, and a small hand weaved its way out of the folds. Smiling gently, Kathryn offered a finger, and the chubby fist found it, grasping it tightly. Kathryn watched the infant lovingly as her rosebud mouth stretched open in a yawn, her tiny, pert nose wrinkling and her blue eyes fluttering sleepily. She bent her head slightly, leaving a light kiss on one soft cheek. Gretchen kissed her daughter and granddaughter good-bye, and watched with tears in her eyes as they left.

********

Kathryn met Admiral Paris at the private transporter pad, and he smiled upon seeing what she was carrying. They shook hands, and he stood beside her as they were beamed directly to her quarters. As they materialized, they saw the doctor. He was standing beside the coffee table, on which several instruments lay. Kathryn handed her daughter to the Admiral and sat down on the sofa. Everything had been planned in the last week, since she had delivered and Tuvok had missed his deadline for reporting in. Being so young, Taya could not be left behind, so she was being "smuggled" onto the ship. Only her doctor, her first officer, her chief engineer, and some of the Admiralty knew. She felt the doctor press the tiny implant into the skin just behind her left ear, and waited patiently as he ran the dermal regenerator over it to ensure that it remained deeply embedded in her skin. The implant would allow her, and only her, to hear her baby if she cried. The infant was to be kept in one of the soundproof rooms—one in her quarters, one in her Ready Room—at all times. The rooms had their own security codes, so that no one could "accidentally" walk in and find a week-old child on a starship meant for officers. The result would not be pretty. She had had to do quite a bit of convincing to enable her to bring Taya with her. Admiral Paris handed her daughter back to her, and she cradled her gently. Taya stared up at her, cooing and blowing raspberries. Kathryn just smiled and rose from the sofa, walking towards the nursery. She tapped out the code on the keypad beside the door, and entered, laying the yawning infant on her back in her crib.

********

Listening carefully for the soft sound of her daughter's breathing, Kathryn made her way down the long corridors of Voyager. She stepped into a turbolift.

"Bridge." She glanced to her left, and realized that Lt. Commander Cavit was standing beside her. He nodded respectfully.

"How's our little passenger?" he asked quietly.

"She's fine. She's sleeping."

He nodded. The turbolift slid to a silent stop. Cavit stepped onto the bridge first, announcing, "Captain on the bridge." Everyone immediately stood at attention.

"At ease." Kathryn turned and went into her ready room, saying, "I've got some reports I need to read, Commander. You have the bridge."

********

As Kathryn entered her private domain, she heard a soft cry, and she headed straight for the mini-nursery at the back of her ready room. 

"Computer, privacy lock, authorization Janeway-Alpha-two-zero-one." She tapped the code into the panel beside the door, and it slid open to admit her. "Computer, site-to-site transport, Omega-one-zero-one." A blue shimmer appeared in the small crib, and the tiny form of her daughter came into view. Kathryn smiled. She reached down and brushed a few stray wisps of dark hair aside from her daughter's face, knowing that she was blessed to have such a beautiful child. Taya turned her face into her mother's hand, letting out a plaintive whimper.

"Hey, it's all right, sweetpea," Kathryn murmured as she scooped her up. Cradling her gently, Kathryn sat down at her desk. She began going through the stack of reports she had to read before they could leave the station. An hour later, as she finished the last one, she realized Taya was sound asleep. She eased up out of her chair and moved to set her in her crib. She double-checked that the safety force field would come on if there was an emergency. She had just closed the door when the chime rang. Kathryn quickly situated herself back at her desk, reaching for a random padd.

"Come in," she called. The door slid open, and Cavit entered.

"We're ready to leave, if you are," he said. She nodded, and handed him a padd that contained her signed permission for them to leave spacedock at Deep Space Nine.  She followed him out onto the bridge, taking her seat in the middle of Voyager's command center.

"Lieutenant Stadi," she said to the Betazoid at the helm, "take us out. Set a course for the Badlands. Engage."

********

Several hours later, Kathryn sat in her ready room, feeding Taya. Cavit's voice came over the comm.

"Captain, we've reached the Badlands."

"All right, I'll be out in a moment." She gently disengaged a sleeping Taya from her meal, and put her in the nursery. As she walked out onto the bridge, she saw the viewscreen was filled with the sight of the plasma storm-infested Badlands. She sat down in her seat, her hands gripping the armrests tightly.

"Lieutenant, take us in, nice and easy." Stadi guided the ship into the maelstrom of activity, her eyes darting between the viewscreen and her console. Several plasma storms came perilously close to hitting Voyager, but Stadi's graceful maneuvers steered them clear each time. 

Suddenly, Harry Kim cried out, "Captain, there's a displacement wave coming right toward us!"

She turned in her seat to face the ensign. "Can we outrun it?"

He shook his head gravely. "No, ma'am. By my estimated, it'll reach us in less than three minutes." They tried everything they could think of to disperse the wave, but nothing worked. Then, the wave was upon them. Kathryn heard herself cry out as she was slammed into the deck, and everything went black.

********

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	2. Caretaker

**TAYA**

**Chapter 2**

Kathryn awoke sometime later, hearing someone moving above her. She groaned as she heaved herself from the deck, Taya's screams, amplified by the implant, ringing in her ears. Tom Paris extended a hand to her, helping her into a standing position. She nodded her thanks and moved toward the unmoving form of her first officer. Cavit was gray and stiff, and she felt for a pulse on first his neck, then his wrist. There wasn't one. Tom reported quietly that Stadi was dead. Things moved quickly from there. She found herself in engineering, helping fix a problem with the warp core. Then, an ominous call came from the bridge, cut short in the middle of the sentence. She started to issue an order for a shipwide emergency lockdown, but got no more than a few words out of her mouth before she dematerialized.

********

Kathryn appeared in what seemed to be some kind of farm. She noticed a large farmhouse, and moved towards it as an elderly woman came out, holding a large tray of food.

"Come up here! Come on, now! I have a pitcher of lemonade and some sugar cookies. Oh, you poor things, you must be tired out, so come on and have a cold drink, hmm?" Before Kathryn could reply, she turned her attention elsewhere. Kathryn followed the old woman as she moved out of side to the other side of the porch, hidden from view of the front yard. A tiny wooden cradle appeared, and the plaintive wail of an infant met her ears. Kathryn's eyes examined the cradle for a moment as her thoughts raced. _If the entire crew has been transported to this array, then it's safe to assume that…Taya! My baby! She rushed to the tiny bed, scooping her baby out and cradling her gently. After a moment, she heard Tom Paris calling for her. She quickly wrapped her daughter in one of the blankets from the cradle, effectively hiding her from view. No one would be able to tell that she was carrying a baby unless she cried. Kathryn moved back out into the open, ignoring the questioning glances of a few of the crew. Tom looked at her oddly as he brought her to the strange barn he and Harry had found—it contained the holographic emitter they'd been looking for. As she watched, tightening her grip on her baby slightly, the wall before them disappeared to reveal the crew of the Maquis ship they'd been pursuing. She immediately fastened on the dark-skinned Vulcan man—Tuvok, her security chief. She barely had time to register this fact before she was transported to one of these areas. She looked to her right, and saw her daughter suspended beside her. Simultaneously, metal rods reached down from the ceiling, embedding themselves deeply into the abdomens of the people below them. Kathryn arched her back, hissing in pain, and let out a sharp cry, hearing her baby scream before sinking into oblivion._

********


End file.
